Improving Python (was: Lambda going out of fashion)

[Just]

In article <mailman.8453.1104070799.5135.python-list at python.org>,
 "Fredrik Lundh" <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:

> func(*arg) instead of apply() is a step back

Strongly disagree. I find func(*args) much more readable than 
apply(func, args).

> -- it hides the fact that functions are objects,

What does this have to do with anything?

> and it confuses the heck out of both C/C++ programmers and
> Python programmers that understand the "def func(*arg)" form, because it
> looks like something it isn't (there's a false symmetry between the call-form
> and the def-form).

What's false about the symmetry?

  Call: you supply a sequence of args
  Def: you receive a sequence of args

Lovely.

> and I still do enough 1.5.2-programming to use "x = x + y"; when I find
> myself in a situation where my code would benefit a lot from being able to
> write "x += y" instead, I go back and fix the design.
> 
> string methods are nice, but nothing groundbreaking, and their niceness is
> almost entirely offset by the horrid "".join(seq) construct that keeps 
> popping
> up when people take the "the string module is deprecated" yada yada too
> seriously.  and what do the python-devers do?  they add a "sum" built-in,
> but no "join"?  hello?

That's what you get for unsubscribing ;-)

Just